Sweet and Spicy
by adriannaisme
Summary: Imogen Moreno hopes that her new school year will be fun and exciting. Enter Zoe Rivas, the newest Degrassi mean girl, and all Imogen hopes for is the year to be over. Somewhere in between the lines of hatred, will the two come together? Zoe/Imogen
1. Chapter 1

She expected her first day back to be something different. Something new. Over the summer, she'd done a lot of sorting things out, and she was happy for the first time in months. Her happiness grew dull on her first day back. She felt like she had gone back in a time machine to a year ago, when she was virtually friendless and alone. The only friends she had were the Torres brothers, but Drew was swept up in student council duties, and Adam was hanging out with Becky, who had been done most of the summer.

Her first class, Chemistry, was filled with unfamiliar faces and groups of established friends. It was _exactly_ like her experience just one year ago.

In her second class, she was greeted by Drew, but he was smiling and laughing with his jock friends, so she didn't want to interrupt.

On the way to third period was where her day really turned sour. She was scuttling down the hallway when she dropped her sketchbook. Miscellaneous papers went flying and she sighed as she reached down to get them.

"God, get out of the way," she heard from above her. Imogen looked over and saw a wedged shoe kick her book across the hall. Looking up at the culprit, she saw a brunette with a style that Fiona would have adored. As her mind drifted off to her ex –girlfriend, she frowned.

"Uh, hello? Earth to freak?" the girl asked, "Are you going to move?" Imogen stood up and put her head down, "Sorry," she muttered, shuffling to the other side of the hallway to grab her book.

When Imogen heard the girl's heels clicking down the hallway, she leaned up against the lockers and took a deep breath.

Imogen skipped her next class upset in the bathroom. She thought that this year was going to be better, but nothing was going how she expected it to. Of course she didn't expect to go back to Degrassi with people in line to be her friend, but she expected more than _this._

Lunch was the highlight of her day. She joined Adam at a table and laughed for the first time that day. He told her stories about Becky's summer, and Imogen couldn't help but notice how completely in love with the blonde girl he was. He lit up when he saw her, and she just hoped she'd find something like that again.

"Adam?" she asked, when the conversation dulled down. He looked up at her. "Will I ever have that? What you have with Becky?"

Adam chuckled, "Of course you will, Immy, don't be silly." That was enough to make Imogen drop the subject.

Art class rolled around after lunch, and Imogen was excited about it, until she heard the familiar clicking of heels coming into class after the late bell. "You're late," the teacher scolded, giving the girl a look. She shook it off, mumbling a whatever. She took the only available seat, which was next to Imogen, and sighed.

The class started off with simple sketches, which Imogen excelled at. The teacher took notice, and showed off a few of them to the class. The girl beside her, on the other hand, could have used some of Imogen's artistic abilities.

"Miss Moreno," the art teacher called with a grin, "can you be a dear and help Zoe here?" she motioned to the brunette beside her.

"I don't need her help!" Zoe screeched, throwing her hands up overdramatically.

"Miss Rivas, you could learn a thing or two from Imogen." The teacher walked off, not wanting to fight with the stubborn student.

"Look," Imogen whispered to the girl beside her, "If you want some help, I can help you, but if you're going to treat me like garbage, I have better things to do,"

"Like what?" Zoe questioned back in a bitter tone.

"I'm taking back my offer. It's unfortunate that some people can't accept help when they desperately need it," Imogen snapped back, and began to gather up her things. She went up to the teacher and asked if she could be dismissed to the library. The teacher nodded in approval, and Imogen walked out the door, giving Zoe a glare as she left.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you to everyone who reviewed/favorite/followed this story so far, I really appreciate it! Here's the next chapter, I tried to make it a bit longer since the first one was so short. I wanted to incorporate some stuff with Imogen's family in here, so this chapter touches on this quite a bit. Apologies it's not very much Imogen and Zoe interaction, but I really love the dementia storyline and wanted to include it in this story.

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When Imogen arrived back at home after her first day back, she was disappointed. She just wished her day had gone better, and it didn't help that she almost let the new diva get to her.

She threw her bag into her room, and headed into the kitchen for a drink. Opening the fridge, her eyes fixed on something shiny towards the back of it. She raised an eyebrow, reaching for the shining object, and realized it was a set of keys when she picked it up. Her dad's keys.

Imogen's heart skipped a beat. She didn't think her dad was home, and he didn't leave any kind of note about going anywhere.

"Dad?" she called, loud and frantically, slamming the refrigerator shut and pacing through to the living room, "Dad?"

Running up the stairs, she checked in his room and the bathroom, but there still was no sight of the older Moreno.

As she made her way back downstairs, she was out of breath. Reaching for her phone, she dialed her father's number quickly. She heard ring after ring, and wanted to cry when it went to voicemail.

Desperate, she dialed her mother, who picked up on the second ring. "Imogen?" she asked, surprised that her daughter was calling her.

"Do you know where dad is?" Imogen asked, panting. Natalie was silent on the other line for a moment, "I don't. He's not home?" Imogen's breath caught in her throat as she mumbled a soft no.

"Imogen, honey, I'll be over as soon as I can be, alright?"

"No. Mom, I'll go look for him. He can't be far, he doesn't have his car with him. I'll call you back." Imogen hung up the phone before her mother had time to answer, and shoved it in her pocket.

Grabbing her own keys, she locked the door behind her and she shuffled out of the house, almost racing down the street.

She knew her dad liked the deli around the block, and he always was picking up something at the drugstore a few streets over, so she hoped he would be in one of those places.

The bells at the deli door didn't have time to silence as Imogen was in and out in seconds. She took a quick sweep around with her eyes, and as soon as she noticed that her dad wasn't there, she bolted out to try the next store.

After two unsuccessful streets, she tried to call him once more, and again she got no answer. "Come on, dad," she whispered, "where have you gone?"

She kept up her pace after she put her phone away, and headed for the next block towards the drugstore. Entering the store, she frantically ran through the aisles, almost running into someone.

"Watch it, Moreno," the person said, and Imogen recognized it as the Zoe girl from school. Rolling her eyes, Imogen tried to get pass her. "Can you just move," Imogen said, but the girl stood still in the middle of the aisle. Shaking her head, Imogen, now filled with rage, pushed the girl out of the way and through the other aisles.

She heard Zoe let out an annoyed groan from the aisle, but ignore her. Imogen had way more important things to deal with than some diva girl at school.

Once she found the drugstore to be free of her father, she sighed, losing hope.

It was getting dark outside, and she had looked everywhere that she thought he could be.

She decided to head home, and hoped she would find him on the porch. She didn't.

Imogen came home and found the house just as it was when she left. No sight of her dad at all. Running into her room, she pulled out her phone and called her mother again. "Did you find him, Imogen?"

Imogen shook her head, tears falling down her face, "No. I looked everywhere, mom. Where could he have gone?" she cried, "Should I call the police or something?"

"I'll take care of it, Imogen, don't worry. Your dad will be fine, and you know that. Just stay at home until this gets sorted out. I promise you that everything will be okay." Her mother insisted.

"Okay," Imogen choked out, hanging up the phone and throwing it on her bed.

A strong urge hit her to call Fiona. She would understand what was going on and would be by her side. Imogen wanted nothing more than to be held by her ex-girlfriend at that moment, and be told that everything was going to be alright.

The next person that came into her head was Eli, who was in New York. She figured all she could do was try and reach out to him, and hopefully he'd make her feel at ease.

Carrying herself over to her bed, she fell onto it and dialed Eli's number. He answered at the third ring, "Hello?"

"Eli?" Imogen's eyes filled with tears once again, "You have time to talk?" she asked.

"Yeah, are you alright?" he asked, noticing the tone of her voice was sad compared to her usual cheery self.

"No. Eli, I don't know where my dad is, and I've looked everywhere. He's not here and I don't know if he's safe. Mom said she'd call the police, but I'm so scared" Imogen cried.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, Imo. Your dad will be fine, you just need to calm down," Eli said, trying to make her feel better, "Stop thinking about it for a little bit. The police will find him and bring him home safe. Get your mind off of it for a little bit. Tell me about your first day back at Degrassi."

Imogen wiped the tears from her eyes, and took a deep breath. "It was okay, I guess. There's this mean girl, though, her name is Zoe Rivas, but what did I expect? There will always be mean girls at Degrassi."

"Don't let her get to you," Eli told her, knowing what happens when you play with fire.

"She was in the store when I was looking for my dad. And that's a little hard. Dawes put our seats together in art class."

"Is she anywhere near as good an artist as you?" Eli asked.

Imogen almost laughed, "No, she's terrible. I think it made her pretty angry when Dawes told her to take some advice from me." Eli chuckled on the other line.

Imogen heard a beep in her ear, and she gasped, "Eli, I have another call, hold on," she switched the calls, anxiously, "hello?"

"Imogen?" she heard her mom's voice, "I'm coming to pick you up."

Imogen's heart dropped as she dropped her phone. The tone in her mother's voice was strange, and she knew something was wrong.

"No," Imogen whispered, falling to her knees in tears.

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Sorry for leaving you hanging. Reviews make me update faster, and I love to know what you guys think!

Thanks for reading!


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